Heartbeat Monitoring

Geographic Edition software uses heartbeats to monitor the state between partner clusters. Heartbeats
are sent over the public network to detect cluster failures at geographically separated
sites. Heartbeat monitoring is part of a partnership configuration. For example, a cluster failure
occurs when all nodes of a cluster shut down. Geographic Edition software uses
the heartbeat status to notify administrators of failures or to trigger a failover
to a secondary cluster at an alternate site. Heartbeats could also be lost
when a cluster loses access to the public network and no communication occurs
between the partner clusters.

Heartbeat Plug-ins

The heartbeat monitor uses plug-in modules to query the heartbeat status of its
partners. Geographic Edition software offers default plug-ins for monitoring through a TCP/UDP connection.

You can use customize plug-ins to provide a data path over alternate communication
links, such as email, HTTP, satellite, and microwave towers.